Ethics Assignment

By Gina Gomez,Oct 27, (THAINDIAN NEWS) Music fans all over the world were shocked to hear that LimeWire, one of the world’s biggest file sharing and service provider for music downloads, tv shows and films has been closed down. LimeWire had existed like a thorn in the path of many music companies who could not tolerate the popularity of the site as it enabled users to download music for free. A case was filed against LimeWire by The Recording Industry Association of America that claimed its members were facing a huge loss in revenue due to the free service hosted by LimeWire.

To the dismay of millions around the world a US federal judge gave its decision against LimeWire, whose download service has been categorized as an illegal one. Founder Mark Gorton has been accused of enriching himself illegally through his piracy machine LimeWire, and the court will reportedly determine the compensation payable by LimeWire to its suer in January. Mark Gorton has acknowledged that his company has made millions with the pirated software that had become an easy ground for passing of pirated music on the web. LimeWire however, sees the court decision as a temporary setback and hopes to work with the music industry by implementing necessary changes in future.

A spokesperson for LimeWire said that LimeWire continues to exist but no longer operates as a file sharing service. The plans of the company are not clear right now and its prospects appear to be dim, concluded the spokesperson. The damages claimed by the Recording Industry Association of America could go well over $1 billion.

______________________________________________________________________________This story violates commandment number six and maybe even number four. It violates them because for number 6, you’re downloading music you haven’t even paid for. It’s basically like walking to a music store and stealing the disc /album yourself. In the end, the artists don’t get paid, and you probably could get arrested. And for commandment number 4, like I explained earlier, it’s completely stealing to just download it for free off Limewire, or any other illegal music site. I think this article is a great example to show what happens when you pirate/illegally download music from the internet. It (the site) was closed and sued, and the illegal music downloaded cost over a billion dollars. What I’m saying is, basically this site and its users have stolen and used proprietary software they haven’t even paid for.